The Buccaneers
Back in the nineties everyone was obsessed with the new adaptation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice with moist Colin Firth. I wasn't an exception to this rule, I was fully committed, six tape VHS boxset and all watched over and over again. But there were two other period pieces I gravitated towards more often, mainly because you could always stumble across one or the other in the middle of the night on upper cable channels. I'm talking about Louisa May Alcott's The Inheritance and Edith Wharton's The Buccaneers. For years I didn't know what either was called, in my mind it was TV movie with mom from Family Ties with Greg from Dharma and Greg and the miniseries with girl from Son in Law. And yes, that's the Pauly Shore movie. I don't think it was until the advent of Netflix that I was finally able to watch all of The Buccaneers in order, but I loved watching it knowing so much of the cast from other shows I loved. I recently had time to rewatch it and the ending left me cold. The women were pushed aside for the men to take center stage which narratively made absolutely no sense at all. Which made me super excited when I heard that Apple was going to be making a new adaptation of the Wharton book. And not to put to fine a point on it, but she never finished the book so there's a lot of liberties you can take, which Apple of course was quick to capitalize on, hello Lesbians! But I was also worried, would they go all Gossip Girl with this? Or, horror of horrors, Bridgerton? And while yes, you could see they were veering toward the wisteria laden land of the Bridgertons, thankfully without trying to pass off modern music as "art," there was actually a more Clueless vibe. I had hope. At least in the beginning. I was baffled by them starting the show quite far into the story and making Saratoga Springs out to be like it's in the sticks, when it wasn't, it was about new money versus old money, and then there was the swapping of character traits and backstories in an attempt to make it fresh. OK, I can kind of see where you're going, but the main problem was they created this to be a series so while the adaptation in the nineties covered ground fairly quickly here, once the girls get to England, the story stagnates. Nothing happens. They brood over their lives and then get together and scream. A lot. There's a lot of childish hen night behavior used to pad the episodes. And Nan's courtship would never drap on this long. The episode though that broke me was the Christmas episode. Nan's love interest looks like he's wearing Colin Firth's sweater from Bridget Jones's Diary. In the library there's a globe with Alaska on it. And then to add insult to injury, they take the loving governess Miss Testvalley and turn her into Mary Kay Letourneau. It's not spelled out, but given how her three charges turned out, I think she sexually abused them all, preying on them from the shadows. It's just so fucking creepy. There could have been depth here but there's no depth at all, it's all lets run around and giggle without evolving. And as for the "ending!?!" Nan gives everything up for her evil sister? Nope. No way. That's it for me. The least I expected was a reveal that Miss Testvalley was Nan's mother, instead Miss Testvalley is a pedophile and they decided to do a Dynasty and hold the reveal of Nan's mother until next season to see if they can get a big name star. My advice to anyone offered this role? Run, don't walk. You do not want to be involved in this trainwreck.
When Queen Charlotte was announced I honestly think that I was more excited to see it than I was another season of Bridgerton. I have many issues with 
The Midnight Hour by Elly Griffiths
Lock Every Door by Riley Sager
When the first proposed spin-off from Upstairs, Downstairs set in a boarding house run by Hudson and Mrs. Bridges, now Mrs. Hudson, had to be scrapped due to Angela Baddeley's death, John Hawksworth was apparently so stuck on the idea of doing a period show set in a residential hotel that we got The Duchess of Duke Street. Considered by most to be the natural successor to Upstairs, Downstairs, and I will fight anyone who tries to say, "what about Thomas and Sarah?" Because that show was a piece of shit and you know it! Based on the life of the Duchess of Jermyn Street, Rosa Lewis, who rose from humble cook to hotel owner, The Duchess of Duke Street, while having a certain Upstairs, Downstairs vibe with the patrons and servants of the Bentinck Hotel has in my mind more humble heart than it's predecessor. Here everyone is a little mad, a little off kilter, a little rough around the edges, and that endeared me to each and every character. The elderly Merriman, who came with the property and is a house-elf in human form, the doorman Starr and his faithful pooch Fred, Mary, The Major, who while technically a guest is also technically staff, and Charlie, the young buck who was turned down only to become the money man and love interest of our erstwhile owner, Louisa Trotter! Louisa is rough and gruff and she knows what she wants and doesn't let anyone stand in her way, let alone an annoying husband. But while every episode is a wonderful little vignette of Louisa fighting against convention and making a place in the world for herself and her family series two has one of my favorite episodes of any show ever, "Winter Lament." By this point Charlie is married to the rather sweet but weak Margaret and is no longer living at the Bentinck. Instead he's taken up residence at the ancestral pile with his wife who is not well. He begs Louisa to come and help, but it's too late, Margaret is too far gone and this episode feels as if the Brontes came back to life to write a television show. It's just such a weird little bottle episode but it's perfect. In fact it's because of this that I ended up watching all of Dynasty because Christopher Cazenove who plays Charlie plays Ben on that eighties soap staple.
Starting out in a whorehouse and ending in a prison with heavy Jack the Ripper overtones throughout makes The Charmer feel a bit off-brand and risque for Masterpiece Theatre. But it was the late eighties, perhaps they were trying to embrace an audience fed on years of Dynasty and Dallas? And you can't say it doesn't grab your attention with the charming yet menacing turn by Nigel Havers as Ralph Gorse, a man who'd never say no to a ligature. But knowing it's based on a series of books by Patrick Hamilton, the master of despair and dread, who supposedly based the character of Gorse on a serial killer, you can't say you didn't know what you were getting into...Unless you totally forgot about Patrick Hamilton's pedigree of Rope and Gaslight like I had, then you're watching the show slightly baffled that what you thought was going to be a nice little romp in the thirties veers into very dark territory. In fact, this note should have been passed along to whomever did the music, it's a little too cheerful, if you get my drift, and you'll get the Cole Porter song "You're the Top" stuck in your head for days. The material is primarily pulled from the second volume in Hamilton's series, Mr. Stimpson and Mr. Gorse, which I think would have been a far better title. Because while Gorse is a charming gigolo working his way into weary women's lives for a bit of lucre it's really the cat and mouse game between him and Mr. Stimpson that drives the plot. Mr. Stimpson feels that Ralph thwarted his love affair with Joan Plumleigh-Bruce, played divinely by Rosemary Leach. And OF COURSE Ralph did. But the problem is even if Ralph is a psychopath with sociopathic tenancies, he's not this dogmatic hypocritical stick in the mud that is everything Mr. Stimpson is. I'm not sure if it's because of how Bernard Hepton plays the roll or just how Mr. Stimpson is written, but you want him to lose. You want him to lose so bad. Yet ironically he is the voice of reason. But while there are reviewers who claim they wanted Ralph to get away with his crimes, I did not. I wanted accountability for everyone and for Joan to come out on top. Well, two out of three isn't bad.
